The Thibaults (23 page)

The interview lasted for a long time. The Abbé had had the young man sit beside him, as if for a confession, and listened meditatively to him, in his favourite position, leaning well back in his chair, with his head slightly drooping to the left. He let Antoine have his say without interrupting him. The long-nosed, sallow face was almost expressionless, but now and again he cast a gentle, searching look on his companion, a look that conveyed his wish to read the thoughts behind the spoken words. Though he had seen less of Antoine than of the other members of the Thibault family, he had always treated him with particular esteem; what just now gave a certain piquancy to this attitude was that it was largely due to M. Thibault himself, whose vanity was always agreeably tickled by Antoine’s successes, and who was fond of singing his son’s praises.

Antoine did not try to win over the Abbé by dint of argument, but gave him an unvarnished account of the day he had spent at Crouy, ending by the scene with his father. For that the Abbé reproved him, not by words but by a deprecating flutter of his hands, which he had a way of holding level with his chest. They were the typical priest’s hands, tapering smoothly away from round, plump wrists and capable of manifesting sudden animation without moving from where they were; it was as though nature had accorded them the faculty of expression which she had denied the Abbé’s face.

“Jacques’s fate is now in your hands, M. l’Abbé,” Antoine concluded. “You alone can make Father listen to reason.”

The priest did not answer, and the gaze he now gave Antoine was so aloof and sombre that the young man could draw no conclusion from it. It brought home to him his own powerlessness and the appalling difficulties of the task he had undertaken.

“And afterwards?” the Abbé softly questioned.

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Supposing your father brings Jacques back to Paris, what will he do with him afterwards?”

Antoine felt embarrassed. He knew exactly what he wanted to do, but wondered how to put it, for he had the gravest doubts as to whether he could get the Abbé to approve of his plan, involving as it did Jacques’s quitting his father’s flat and coming to live with his brother on the ground floor of the same building. And dare he tell the priest that he meant to remove the boy almost entirely from parental authority, to take on himself alone the supervision of Jacques’s education, indeed the entire control of his brother’s life? When he explained this to the priest, the latter smiled, but the smile was perfectly good-humoured.

“You’d be taking on a heavy task, my friend.”

“No matter!” Antoine replied impetuously. “You know I’m absolutely convinced that what the boy needs is plenty of freedom, that he’ll never develop in an atmosphere of repression. You may laugh at me, sir, but I’m positive that if I took entire responsibility for him …”

But he could get nothing more out of the Abbé than another shrug of the shoulders, followed by one of his shrewd, searching glances, that seemed to come from very far away and sink so deep. He felt profoundly disheartened when he left the Abbé. After the furious rebuff from his father, the priest’s unenthusiastic reception of his scheme had left him scarcely any hope. He would have been much surprised to learn that the Abbé had resolved to go to see M. Thibault that very day.

He did not need to take that trouble. When he returned, as he did every day after mass, to drink his cup of cold milk in the flat, a few steps from the Archbishop’s Palace, where he lived with his sister, he found M. Thibault waiting for him in the dining-room. The big, thick-set man, sunk in a chair with his large hands resting on his legs, was still nursing his resentment. At the Abbé’s entrance he rose heavily from the chair.

“So here you are?” he murmured. “I suppose my visit is a surprise to you?”

“Not so much as you suppose,” the Abbé answered. Now and again the ghost of a smile and a gleam of mischievous humour lit up the impassive face. “I have an excellent detective service and there’s little I’m not informed of. But will you excuse me?” he added, going towards the mug of milk awaiting him on the table.

“What’s that? Do you mean you’ve seen …?”

The Abbé drank his milk in little sips.

“I learned how Astier was, yesterday morning, from the Duchess. But it was only last night that I heard of the withdrawal of your competitor.”

“Astier? Do you mean …? I don’t follow. I’ve not been told anything… .”

“Well, now, that’s amazing!” the Abbé smiled. “Is the pleasure of breaking the good news to you to be my privilege?” He took his time. “Well, then, old Astier’s had a fourth stroke; this time the poor man’s doomed, and so the Dean, who’s no fool, is withdrawing, leaving you as the only candidate for election to the vacant seat at the Institute of Moral Science.”

“What!” M. Thibault exclaimed. “The Dean’s withdrawing! But why? I don’t follow.”

“Because, on second thought, he realizes that the post of Registrar would be more suitable for a Dean of the Faculty of Letters, and also because he’d rather wait a few weeks for a seat that isn’t contested than risk his chance against you.”

“Are you quite sure of it?”

“It’s official. I met the permanent secretary at the gathering of the Catholic Association yesterday evening. The Dean had just called in, and he had his letter of withdrawal with him. A candidature that lasted les-° than twenty-four hours—that’s rather unusual, isn’t it?”

“But, in that case …!” M. Thibault panted. His surprise and delight had taken his breath away. He moved a few steps forward, without looking where he was going, his hands behind his back; then, turning to the priest, he all but embraced him. Actually he only clasped his hands.

“Ah, my dear Abbé, I shall never forget. Thank you; Thank you.”

Again delight submerged him, leaving no room for any other feelings, sweeping away his anger; so much so that he had to exercise his memory when the Abbé—having without his noticing it led him to the study—asked in a perfectly natural tone:

“And what can have brought you here so early, my dear friend?”

Then he remembered Antoine, and at once his anger mastered him again. He had come, so he explained, to ask the Abbé’s advice as to the attitude he should adopt towards his elder son, who had much changed lately, changed for the worse, towards a mood of unbelief and insubordination. Was he, for instance, conforming with his religious obligations? Did he go to mass? He was growing more and more erratic in his attendance at the family table—giving his patients as an excuse—and, when he did put in an appearance, behaved in a new and disagreeable manner. He contradicted his father and indulged in unthinkable liberties of speech. At the time of the recent municipal elections, the discussion had several times taken so bitter a turn that it had been necessary to tell him to hold his tongue, as if he were a small boy. In short, if Antoine was to be kept in the way he should go, some new line would have to be taken with him; in this respect M. Thibault felt that the assistance and perhaps the active intervention of his good friend the Abbé were indispensable. As an illustration, M. Thibault described the undutiful conduct of which Antoine had been guilty in going to Crouy, the foolish notions he had brought back with him, and the shocking scene that had followed. Yet all the time, the esteem in which he held Antoine and which, without his knowing it, was actually enhanced by the very acts of insubordination with which he was now reproaching him, was always evident; and the Abbé duly noted it.

Sitting listless at his desk, the priest from time to time signified his approval with little fluttering movements of his fingers on each side of the clerical bands that fell across his chest. Only when Jacques’s name was mentioned did he raise his head and show signs of extreme interest. By a series of skilful, seemingly disconnected questions, he obtained confirmation from the father of all he had been told by the son.

“But really!” he exclaimed vaguely. He seemed to be talking to himself. He meditated for a few moments. M. Thibault waited, in some surprise. When the Abbé spoke again his voice was firm.

“What you tell me about Antoine’s behaviour doesn’t worry me as much as it does you, my friend. It was to be expected. The first effect of scientific studies on an inquiring and active mind is always to puff up a young man in his own conceit and cause his faith to waver. A little knowledge leads a man away from God; a great deal brings him back again. Don’t be alarmed. Antoine’s at the age when a man rushes from one extreme to another. You did well to tell me about it. I’ll make a point of seeing him and talking to him oftener. None of that is very serious. Only have patience, and he’ll come back to the fold.

“But what you tell me about Jacques’s present life makes me feel far more anxious. I had no idea that his seclusion was of so extreme a nature. Why, the life he’s leading is that of a convict, and I cannot but believe it has its perils. In fact, my dear friend, I confess I’m very worried about it. Have you given the matter your earnest consideration?”

M. Thibault smiled. “In all honesty, my dear Abbé, I can say to you as I said yesterday to Antoine: don’t you realize that we are far better equipped than the common run for dealing with such problems?”

“I don’t deny it,” the priest agreed good-humouredly. “But the boys you usually have to deal with don’t need the special handling that your younger son’s peculiar temperament calls for. In any case, I gather, they are treated on a different system, they live together, have recreation hours in common, and are employed on manual work. I was, as you will remember, in favour of inflicting on Jacques a severe punishment, and I believed that a taste of somewhat prison-like surroundings might lead him to reflect and mend his ways. But, good heavens, I never dreamt of its being a real imprisonment; least of all that it would be inflicted on him for so long a period. Just think of it! A boy of scarcely fifteen has been kept alone in a cell for eight months under the supervision of an uneducated guard, as to whose probity of character you have only the assurances of the local officials. He has a few lessons—but what do you really know about this tutor from Compiègne who, in any case, devotes a mere three or four hours a week to teaching the boy? I repeat, what do you really know about him? Then again, one of the points you made was your experience. There let me remind you that I’ve lived amongst schoolboys for twelve years, that I’m far from ignorant of what a boy of fifteen is like. The state of physical and, worse, of moral decay into which this poor child may have fallen, without its being apparent to you—it makes one shudder!”

“Well, well!” M. Thibault exclaimed. “I’m surprised at that from you. I wouldn’t have thought you so sentimentally minded,” he added with a brief, ironic laugh. “But we aren’t concerned with Jacques at present.”

“Excuse me,” the Abbé broke in, without raising his voice, “Jacques is our first concern just now. After what I’ve just learned, I consider that the physical and moral health of this child is being exposed to terrible risks.” After seeming to ponder, he added with slow emphasis: “And he should not remain one day longer where he is.”

“What!”

For a while neither spoke. It was the second time within twelve hours that M. Thibault had been touched on the raw. He felt his temper rising but kept it in check.

“We’ll talk it over some other day,” he said, beginning to rise. His tone implied that he was making a great concession.

“No, I’m sorry, but that will not do,” the priest broke in, with unwonted vivacity. “The least one can say is that you have acted with an imprudence that is almost inexcusable.” He had a way, soft but emphatic, of letting his voice linger on certain words, though his face showed no emotion, and at the same time raising his forefinger to his lips, as if to say: Mark well what I am saying. He made this gesture as he repeated: “Almost inexcusable!” After a momentary pause he said: “And now the essential thing is to remedy the evil that’s been done.”

“What? What do you want me to do?” M. Thibault had given up trying to restrain his anger, and faced up to the priest aggressively. “Am I going to cut short, without any reason, a treatment that has already produced such excellent results, and take that young scoundrel back into my house? Just to be once more at the mercy of his disgusting fads and fancies? No, thank you!” He clenched his fists so fiercely that the knuckles cracked, and his set teeth gave a guttural harshness to his voice. “With all due consideration, I say—emphatically—
No
!”

The Abbé’s hand made a brief conciliatory gesture, implying: Have it your own way!

M. Thibault had pulled himself up heavily from his chair. Once more Jacques’s fate hung in the balance.

“My dear Abbé,” he went on, “I see there’s no prospect of a serious talk with you this morning, so I’m off. But let me tell you, you’re allowing your imagination to run away with you, exactly as Antoine did. Come now! Do I look like an unnatural father? Haven’t I done everything to bring back this child to the right path, by affection and kindness, by good example and the influences of family life? Haven’t I endured for years the utmost a father can endure from a son? And can you deny that all my well-meaning efforts have been wasted? Fortunately I realized in time that my duty lay along different lines and, painful as it was, I did not hesitate to take stern measures. You agreed with me then. Moreover, God in His mercy had given me some experience; I’ve often thought that in inspiring me with the idea of establishing that special department at Crouy, Providence enabled me to prepare in advance the remedy for a personal affliction. Have I not borne this trial with a certain courage? Would many fathers have done as I have done? Have I anything to reproach myself with? God be thanked, I have a quiet conscience.” But, as he made the proud assertion, there came into his tone a note of uncertainty, as if some still small voice within were protesting against it. “My wish for every father is that his conscience may be as clear as mine!”

He opened the door, a complacent smile hovering on his face. For his parting shot, his voice had an accent of pawky humour, not without a savour that smacked of his native Norman soil.